Electronics have been shrinking since their inception. With decreased cost, size, weight, and power consumption comes increased adoption and portability. “Personal” electronics have become ubiquitous. Solid-state music players only slightly larger than a pack of gum store hundreds, sometimes thousands of songs which are instantly accessible, Rand-held computing devices like mobile phones now have the ability to capture, edit, and publish a variety of digital media. Sophisticated video production is now possible on many such devices, some of which are roughly the size of a. deck of playing cards.
As portability increases, so does the diversity and harshness of environments in which those devices are used, and demand for devices and accessories accommodating harsher environments is rising. Athletic clothing designs increasingly include pockets meant to conveniently accommodate personal electronics. More products boast increased resistance to temperature fluctuation, humidity, shock or fluid submersion.
Despite a trend to develop wireless electronic accessories, cables continue to serve useful and necessary purposes. As inexhaustive examples, the fidelity of tethered audio and video transmission remains far superior to wireless counterparts. Small scale wireless power remains inefficient over any useful distance, and impractical in some environments. Efficiency and capacity of cable-based digital data transmissions continues to exceed portable wireless methods. However, cable design and versatility has not kept pace with the diversity of environments in which they are now used.
Existing cable connector and strain relief designs are generally of a fixed or rigid shape which cannot be manipulated without defeating or negatively impacting the protections those designs are meant to provide. Attempts at deformation either destroy cable components, damage the device to which the cable is attached, or both. Disparate environments can require different shapes for the same application. For example, a wired headset connected to a mobile phone may benefit from a bend near the device to minimize protrusion when stored in one's pocket, but may require a relatively straight path near the device to avoid collision with a mounting bracket in one's car. Physically active persons may wear a variety of devices on different parts of their bodies. A fixed form may undesirably position the cable to interfere with movement, resulting in distraction or abrasion.
Tight bends are often most convenient if present very close to the device, typically (and frustratingly) within the very space occupied by rigid cable connector designs. Some “low-profile” cable connectors are designed with fixed angles (right angles are common), but they remain rigid and incapable of adapting to varying environments, Users may require, for example, an oblique bend near the device in one environment, an acute bend in a second application, no bend in a third, and multiple bends in a fourth. Users today are faced with either purchasing multiple cables (if they can find the shapes they need), or futilely attempting to contort one cable into a shape outside of its intended use, thereby risking premature failure, damage, and loss of investment. A cable that can accommodate arbitrary bends near the device is needed.